‘Dad rock’ usually refers to cheesey baby boomer hits that today’s dads try to inflict on their kids, like Dire Straits or Sting. But it could just as easily mean music made by dads - musicians who survived their teens and twenties and have kept creating meaningful rock 'n' roll beyond the point where children, mortgages, and careers usually put an end to such pursuits. New Jersey has no shortage of great dad-rock bands, from the Feelies, Smithereens and Wrens, to the lesser known but no less awesome Eastern Anchors.

“Maxwell’s is the first place I went to see bands when I was growing up, so it’s always exciting for us to play there,” said Greene. “It’s also where I think we sound the best. The Court Tavern (in New Brunswick) was always the place where we could play as loud as we wanted but shows there tended to get a little crazy. Now with the Court gone, you can’t play anywhere in New Brunswick. We were trying to set up a show with a friend’s band there and we couldn’t find anywhere to do it.”

“You’ve got to find somebody who’s 20 and ask them,” added Urbano. “The only place you can play there now is if you’re in college and you can have bands in your basement.”

That wasn’t a problem when Greene and Urbano played in Aviso’Hara, back in the glory days of New Brunswick’s Nineties rock scene, when there were as many as ten different clubs and bars hosting live music on a regular basis. But Eastern Anchors play out far less frequently, partly because there’s nowhere to get a show and partly because the investment of that time and energy means more today.

“What we get out of it really hasn’t changed,” said Urbano. “Yeah, we’re older, but you still do it because it’s fun.”

“For me, I just know that when I’ve gone through spans of not playing, I really start to miss it a whole lote, and you realize that playing music is a big part of you,” added Greene. “Even if you’re not in a band, you’re still writing songs, because that’s just who you are. And then you start thinking, oh, what do I do with these? So it starts as a little thing… oh, let’s get together and just play a little while and have a few beers…and then after a while, you want to book a show. And then you’re in a band again.”

“But I will say, it’s not the same as it was 15 years ago,” Green continued. “I think it takes a lot more work today to do less, in a way. Thank God for the Internet and things like that now. When we were in Aviso, we’d just have rehearsal a few times a week, and you’d never have to follow up with anybody or wonder if they’d show up, and we were always playing shows. Now just to schedule one practice a month with three busy people who all have jobs and families is a challenge. So we’re constantly texting and emailing each other. And then when we do practice, we record every practice, especially if we’re working on new stuff, so people can listen to it until we find the time to get together the next time. And then finally, when you do get a show, you have to be a lot more selective; you can’t just run off and drive to Rochester to play one show anymore.”

“And a bad show today is just a lot more depressing,” he added. “When you’re playing shows all the time, one bad show doesn’t matter. But now? We have to make the most of every opportunity we get. Do we like the other band on the bill? No? Okay, we’re not playing. Do we like the venue? No? Fine, forget it. You really have to insure that you’re going to have a good time or it’s not even worth setting it up.”

“You ask yourself, is that really how I want to spend my Saturday night?” added Urbano. “And if the answer is no, then why do it?”

Eastern Anchors started about six years ago as a quartet, with Greene and Urbano both on guitar and Robby Wernersbach on bass. “Then Dave had the second bambino on the way and decided he really didn’t have the time anymore,” said Greene. “So we reworked everything as a three piece and I wrote a bunch of new songs, changed my guitar tunings a little and tried to basically make everything sound a bit larger.” When Wernersbach decided to leave the band a while later, Greene asked Urbano to come back, this time on bass. “When the bass player left, I wanted to make sure this thing kept going and I knew Dave was the right person to do it, so I probably wrote what was essentially a really embarrassing email trying to get him to come back. It was basically like begging an old girl friend to get back with you.”

“Except they told me that this time I couldn’t play guitar, I had to play bass,” said Urbano. “And I thought about it and decided that I missed it.”

“It really sounds quite a bit different now from the first incarnation of the band,” said Greene. “We’re much, much more comfortable now. I’m writing songs on acoustic guitar now, like I did in Aviso. Before, everything we did was really sped up and super fast and very obviously meant for electric guitar. Now it’s way more song oriented instead of guitar oriented.”

“But we’ve still got a little of the weird guitar stuff,” added Urbano. “We still like to make interesting sounds.”

The band released a self-titled album in 2009 and recently recorded a new set of songs with producer Tom Beaujour at his Nuthouse Recording Studio in Hoboken. “We laid down tracks for 11 new songs and a Monkees cover,” he said. “We’ll be finishing the recording in April and then we’ll have to mix and master it, but the goal is to get something out this year. I definitely want it to come out, at least in a limited run, as a full-length vinyl LP, since we haven’t done that before, we’ve just done vinyl singles. And then we’ll do CD and digital as well. And then just be happy with that for a while and see if maybe we can do another one down the road.”

Eastern Anchors will be at Maxwell’s (1039 Washington Street) on Friday, March 23, with Brixton Riot, Roadside Graves, and Lieder. Showtime is 8:30 pm and admission is $8.